I remember setting my new year's resolution this year. I told myself I would lose some weight to make my tri times quicker. As I have now finished the second and last of the triathlons I signed up for this year, I have seen my new year's resolution definitely proven to have been ignored. With my time ever dwindling between work, homelife, and getting rest, I have now realized that triathlons go better with more training, hell, sufficient training would have been nice, but I am capable of finishing a couple of sprint triathlons on very sporadic training efforts. This lack of training, my friends, I do not recommend, but backing down from challenges is something I did not want to do either. My tri times? I am able to finish in under 2 hours, but definitely longer than last years' times.
What does the future hold for me as a triathlete, and working mother? Even further, a working mother of a son with a development disorder? I would have loved to go on some bike rides with James, but his interest in riding his bike, even with training wheels, is low. I plan to continue entering races, and hope to train myself to train better. Will triathlon groups have a role to play in my success?
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Bike fitting
So preparations for the upcoming season have officially begun with a bike fitting for me. I got the low-tech variety bike fitting at a local, but still reputable, bike shop. They started with measuring me all over: total height, arm lengths, inseam, torso length, then he ran off and punched those numbers into their computer and came back saying the bike frame is a perfect fit, but some minor adjustments to the seat position and the handlebars were needed. I was so glad my hand-me-down bike from John was a perfect fit! As for my bike seat, it was a quick spot to see that I had some cushioning issues since I wear the padded cycling shorts and have a cushion on top of the seat. He scooted my seat up a bit to get the largest part directly under my sit bones and tilted the front down a bit so as to relieve a little pressure in the, ahem, more sensitive sites. My knee bend while pedaling was also checked out, as well as the position of the clips on my shoes (adjustments from the manufacturer was perfect), and finally, my bars were attended to. My shoulders were measured at 40cm apart and the bars were at 42cm, making me spread my arms a bit on their way down the handholds. I told him I have shoulder soreness when I ride as my main complaint, to that he answered a stem raiser would reduce the in-the-middle-of-a-pushup position I've been riding in.
I have to wait until the handle bars come in, but soon my rides will be much more comfortable. Maybe it will make me faster, too, in addition to me being able to ride further.
I have to wait until the handle bars come in, but soon my rides will be much more comfortable. Maybe it will make me faster, too, in addition to me being able to ride further.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Considering being a TNT member
I am considering being a Team in Training member, and sent in the postcard to attend their info/kick-off meeting at the Embassy Suites in Alpharetta next month. I usually don't like being, or feeling, obligated to fund raise, and, at this time, is not going to be easy to get people to contribute when we're all trying to find ways to save money. Aside from their presence in my mail box, at packet pickups at various races, and the purple shirts in events, it's only been suggested to me once by a friend to join the group.
So I thought I'd ask all of you about any experience you've had with TNT. Whether you've contributed, been a member, known a member, or went to their info meetings. Is it worth it, are there better causes with similar training/coaching ability, how do they determine how much money you raise, and how much time will it take out of my weeks?
So I thought I'd ask all of you about any experience you've had with TNT. Whether you've contributed, been a member, known a member, or went to their info meetings. Is it worth it, are there better causes with similar training/coaching ability, how do they determine how much money you raise, and how much time will it take out of my weeks?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
LOL tri
John and I are two-time triathletes!
Race prep:
Saturday, John and I had to drop our bikes a day early, as per their rules for the race, and pickup our packets, which included freebie snacks, swim caps, race bib, stickers for our bikes and helmets, and our timing chip. The sites for the Lake Lanier Islands Resort are beautiful! The water was a clear blue, ships were still docked in the marina, they had started putting out their Christmas decoration, including lights on the lines of the suspension bridge. On the way out of town, we ended up driving down a narrow, dirt and gravel path, which haunts us later.
We stopped at Whole Foods to get the fixins for our homemade spaghetti carbo-load dinner. John was making meatballs and sauce, I was making garlic bread, and we invited our neighbors over. While John was up to his elbows in diced onions and cooking sausage, we remembered our meatballs needed to be altered to keep pork out of the recipe. So I had to run to the store again. I pulled out of the driveway in the van, and heard a funny rubbing rubber noise. I stop and look out the door, and I've got a flat (from that dirt road trip). I pulled the van back into the driveway, shouted into John that I had a flat and took his car. I got some chicken sausage, donuts for the next morning for James and milk, came home, and John said he couldn't use the chicken sausage because it was fully cooked. Back to the store again, and this time, his car needed gas. Grrr... After cleaning up dinner and playing some wii with our neighbors, John transformed my flat into a hoopdie-mobile! Woohoo! I've never owned a hoopdie!
Race day:
Couldn't sleep from 3am to 4am for some reason, and my alarm was set to go off at 4:30. We let the sitter in, and showed her to the guest room to sleep until James woke up, the hit the road at 5am. We arrived at the resort at 5:40 and headed to the transition area. We got to walk through the water park, which was closed for the season, and we joked about how cold it was: "man, I'm cold... let's go swimming!"
My favorite part of setting up is talking to others around you. I met women on their first time doing a triathlon, using borrowed bikes, wondering what that announcer guy means by "tire down" side so they could set up their gear on the correct side (entirely too many rules for this race), and finding a spare set of goggles for someone who'd forgotten theirs. Marking "your" rack in transition is a fun thing to see, too. Some people moved the cardboard box trash cans to their aisle, sidewalk chalk to make a big arrow pointing to their bike, and balloons. At the beach, we met a lady and her friend who were both first timers, and one of them had just found out she was pregnant, but still into racing today. Another lady was saying she had been doing triathlons for 3 years and she was up to 15, having done 7 all the previous season, and that was too much for her. I saw one lady who'd been misunderstood at the body marking station, and got her age written on the calf "73" instead of her real age, 33. We told her she looked great for her age, laughing, and said "she's had work done."
Here's a pic of John and I before the race in transition area.
Surprisingly, the 71.5-degree water felt better than the air. John exited the water with the group who'd started in the wave after his, and I spent much of the swim on my back. Apparently, I can't handle all the nervous energy of a race, and that makes me not able to regulate my breathing in swimming. Plus, swimming on my back makes me quite disoriented and dizzy when I need to get out of the water and run up a nasty hill towards transition. Drunken sailor triathlete that I am.
Out on the bike, people were hopping off to walk their bikes up a hill (what!? Who does that on a race?!), and at about 3-4 miles from my starting the bike, John shouts to me on his way back in, "Hey, Karen!!" Yay! Part of the bike path was on a 4-lane, divided highway, with one lane closed off for the triathlon, but funny thing was, that this was a popular stretch of road for biking, and there was a team of cyclists out on their Sunday morning ride, going faster than us, slowing down traffic, and being able to draft off each other (illegal in triathlons). Kind of funny how we tie up traffic. I tried my freebie hammer gel and, because littering on the route was against the rules, I had to stuff the wrapper back into the waste (waist - but punnier as waste) band of my shorts. Good burst of energy, though. I was cold on the bike part, though, with the wind of riding, and being soaking wet from the swim, and it not being warm enough to dry my clothes a little.
John was finishing the run about a minute before I headed out on the run. His turn to sit and freeze while I raced (my wait was on the cold beach in bare feet and cold, damp sand). I took some water and gatorade, and ran, as much as you could call it running after having my legs cramp and my left toes cramp up from the hill back into transition from the bike - ouch! I have this trouble with running, though, it's all mental. I look ahead and see how far I am from finishing, and that makes me want to walk, and I do, lame-o that I am. But then, I think to myself, "I'm not going to puke at the finish if I run, and I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't run as much as I could, so run, bust-o, run! Don't look ahead, just look at the ground right in front of you. Pick out some runner to pace with, or be your landmark for you to reach before you even think of walking again!" Ironically, John told me he also did the moving target method, too, but his first target was too fast, then he picked someone else who, while he was firming up his resolve to hitch onto this guy, he passes him. My run pace was under 12-minute miles, which is about average for me, plus I'd been exercising for over an hour by the time I started running, and I had to use the bathroom, too, making it more difficult to run.
I was still all wet when I was finished, and still cold, so I got to do some twisting and finagling to get out of my sports top while wearing my dry shirt in transition area, sort of a high-school-gym-class-lost-art of modesty. And the LOL tri? My race number was 707, which written horizontally across both fronts of my legs looks like LOL from my perspective.
Before heading home - finishers!
Race prep:
Saturday, John and I had to drop our bikes a day early, as per their rules for the race, and pickup our packets, which included freebie snacks, swim caps, race bib, stickers for our bikes and helmets, and our timing chip. The sites for the Lake Lanier Islands Resort are beautiful! The water was a clear blue, ships were still docked in the marina, they had started putting out their Christmas decoration, including lights on the lines of the suspension bridge. On the way out of town, we ended up driving down a narrow, dirt and gravel path, which haunts us later.
We stopped at Whole Foods to get the fixins for our homemade spaghetti carbo-load dinner. John was making meatballs and sauce, I was making garlic bread, and we invited our neighbors over. While John was up to his elbows in diced onions and cooking sausage, we remembered our meatballs needed to be altered to keep pork out of the recipe. So I had to run to the store again. I pulled out of the driveway in the van, and heard a funny rubbing rubber noise. I stop and look out the door, and I've got a flat (from that dirt road trip). I pulled the van back into the driveway, shouted into John that I had a flat and took his car. I got some chicken sausage, donuts for the next morning for James and milk, came home, and John said he couldn't use the chicken sausage because it was fully cooked. Back to the store again, and this time, his car needed gas. Grrr... After cleaning up dinner and playing some wii with our neighbors, John transformed my flat into a hoopdie-mobile! Woohoo! I've never owned a hoopdie!
Race day:
Couldn't sleep from 3am to 4am for some reason, and my alarm was set to go off at 4:30. We let the sitter in, and showed her to the guest room to sleep until James woke up, the hit the road at 5am. We arrived at the resort at 5:40 and headed to the transition area. We got to walk through the water park, which was closed for the season, and we joked about how cold it was: "man, I'm cold... let's go swimming!"
My favorite part of setting up is talking to others around you. I met women on their first time doing a triathlon, using borrowed bikes, wondering what that announcer guy means by "tire down" side so they could set up their gear on the correct side (entirely too many rules for this race), and finding a spare set of goggles for someone who'd forgotten theirs. Marking "your" rack in transition is a fun thing to see, too. Some people moved the cardboard box trash cans to their aisle, sidewalk chalk to make a big arrow pointing to their bike, and balloons. At the beach, we met a lady and her friend who were both first timers, and one of them had just found out she was pregnant, but still into racing today. Another lady was saying she had been doing triathlons for 3 years and she was up to 15, having done 7 all the previous season, and that was too much for her. I saw one lady who'd been misunderstood at the body marking station, and got her age written on the calf "73" instead of her real age, 33. We told her she looked great for her age, laughing, and said "she's had work done."
Here's a pic of John and I before the race in transition area.
Surprisingly, the 71.5-degree water felt better than the air. John exited the water with the group who'd started in the wave after his, and I spent much of the swim on my back. Apparently, I can't handle all the nervous energy of a race, and that makes me not able to regulate my breathing in swimming. Plus, swimming on my back makes me quite disoriented and dizzy when I need to get out of the water and run up a nasty hill towards transition. Drunken sailor triathlete that I am.
Out on the bike, people were hopping off to walk their bikes up a hill (what!? Who does that on a race?!), and at about 3-4 miles from my starting the bike, John shouts to me on his way back in, "Hey, Karen!!" Yay! Part of the bike path was on a 4-lane, divided highway, with one lane closed off for the triathlon, but funny thing was, that this was a popular stretch of road for biking, and there was a team of cyclists out on their Sunday morning ride, going faster than us, slowing down traffic, and being able to draft off each other (illegal in triathlons). Kind of funny how we tie up traffic. I tried my freebie hammer gel and, because littering on the route was against the rules, I had to stuff the wrapper back into the waste (waist - but punnier as waste) band of my shorts. Good burst of energy, though. I was cold on the bike part, though, with the wind of riding, and being soaking wet from the swim, and it not being warm enough to dry my clothes a little.
John was finishing the run about a minute before I headed out on the run. His turn to sit and freeze while I raced (my wait was on the cold beach in bare feet and cold, damp sand). I took some water and gatorade, and ran, as much as you could call it running after having my legs cramp and my left toes cramp up from the hill back into transition from the bike - ouch! I have this trouble with running, though, it's all mental. I look ahead and see how far I am from finishing, and that makes me want to walk, and I do, lame-o that I am. But then, I think to myself, "I'm not going to puke at the finish if I run, and I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't run as much as I could, so run, bust-o, run! Don't look ahead, just look at the ground right in front of you. Pick out some runner to pace with, or be your landmark for you to reach before you even think of walking again!" Ironically, John told me he also did the moving target method, too, but his first target was too fast, then he picked someone else who, while he was firming up his resolve to hitch onto this guy, he passes him. My run pace was under 12-minute miles, which is about average for me, plus I'd been exercising for over an hour by the time I started running, and I had to use the bathroom, too, making it more difficult to run.
I was still all wet when I was finished, and still cold, so I got to do some twisting and finagling to get out of my sports top while wearing my dry shirt in transition area, sort of a high-school-gym-class-lost-art of modesty. And the LOL tri? My race number was 707, which written horizontally across both fronts of my legs looks like LOL from my perspective.
Before heading home - finishers!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
3 days to go until race
Race day is Sunday; John's decided to go ahead and do the race.
John has a wetsuit, and I don't. They're legal to wear in the race when the water temp is below 78 degrees, but this temperature is nothing compared to the Atlantic ocean temp in MA a few weeks ago.
Last night, I went to the gym to work on my arm muscles I use to pull the water when I swim. I am sore today and I would have rather been actually swimming than reproducing swimming with weights, but maybe that training will give me a little more pull when I swim so I can get out quickly.
Wish us luck. Spaghetti dinner Saturday night. Maybe some sleep, too.
John has a wetsuit, and I don't. They're legal to wear in the race when the water temp is below 78 degrees, but this temperature is nothing compared to the Atlantic ocean temp in MA a few weeks ago.
Last night, I went to the gym to work on my arm muscles I use to pull the water when I swim. I am sore today and I would have rather been actually swimming than reproducing swimming with weights, but maybe that training will give me a little more pull when I swim so I can get out quickly.
Wish us luck. Spaghetti dinner Saturday night. Maybe some sleep, too.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
damper on our plans
John's self-diagnosed himself with a calcaneal stress fracture via WebMD (or the like), and best treatment is to lay off running. This will mean I do the tri alone and we won't need a sitter for James.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
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